


Not in our Stars

by LadyRhiyana



Series: Time travel twists [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossover canon universe with modern setting, F/M, Imaginary Friends (or are they?), Possession, Use of Shakespeare as a learning tool, What Was I Thinking?, season 8 fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2019-11-19 00:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18128267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: Jay Lannister has a secret.Sometimes, if he turns his thoughts sideways and reaches out, he can touch the thoughts of a secret companion: another Jaime, from another time.**[Or, wildfire gives off noxious fumes. When Jaime says that he went away inside, perhaps he went far, far away, to a world very different from his own.]Now complete.





	1. Jay

**Author's Note:**

> So, this happened (I'm still not quite sure how). Mainly because when I was young and impressionable, I read David Gemmell's "Quest for Lost Heroes" where a brave farm boy, faced with having to fight a duel with a barbarian warrior to save the woman he loved, allowed himself to be possessed by the spirit of a cruel, super-skilled warlord. It made quite an impression.

“Mr Lannister,” the court-appointed psychologist says, “do you understand why you are here?” 

Jay Lannister looks down at his hands, pale and smooth; the hands of a scholar, a historian, not a man who works with tools – or weapons. 

Jaime’s hands – _hand_ , he thinks with secret hilarity – is rough and calloused, strong and sun-browned and infinitely capable. 

“Mr Lannister,” the psychologist prompts him again. 

**

Jay Lannister has a secret. 

Sometimes, if he turns his thoughts _sideways_ and reaches out, he can touch the thoughts of a secret companion: another Jaime, from another time. 

Jay has known Jaime since he was fifteen years old and Jaime was a terrified young knight, escaping his own terrible reality – _going away inside_ , as he’d phrased it. Jay had felt a brush against his consciousness, and between one moment and the next he was no longer alone in his own mind – suddenly Jaime was there with him, looking out from behind his eyes, sharing his own distinctly unique viewpoint. 

Jaime was not dangerous, but he was a product of his life and times. He was trained to violence, he was brutally straightforward, and he wasn’t afraid to _act_. 

Jaime was a mediaeval knight. 

And when Jay and his wife had been ambushed late at night by four assailants, he’d panicked, reached out for Jaime, and had watched in sickened, horrified fascination as Jaime-in-his-body had picked up a length of pipe and swiftly, ruthlessly, brutally bludgeoned them to death.

** 

The prison visiting room is cold and impersonal, and the harsh overhead lights make Brienne look washed out and exhausted.

“Jaime,” Brienne says, reaching out to grasp his hand. She always likes that, tangling their fingers together so that their wedding rings sit side by side. “Jaime, please. Talk to me.” She looks around swiftly, lowers her voice. “What happened?” she asks. “I saw your eyes change, your body language shift.” 

Brienne is tall and solid and strong. Jay had met her after her return from two tours of Essos – it was Jaime, in fact, who’d taken a liking to her first. 

“I’ve seen it before, Jaime,” she says. “Sometimes, if only for a moment, there’s someone else looking out behind your eyes – someone who can kill four men without blinking.”

He stares at her. She’s so strong, he thinks. Her eyes are so blue, so calm and capable. _Her_ hands are rough and calloused, like Jaime’s; she knows what it’s like to fight and to kill. 

She always liked stories of chivalry.

“Do you prefer him to me?” he asks, without thinking. “I’m only a historian in a tweed coat.”

“No,” she says, an instinctive protest. “How can you think that? I love _you_ , Jaime Lannister, not – not whatever that was.” She waves her hand. “I don’t want a man who can kill four men without blinking. I want _you_.”


	2. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime Lannister has a secret. Sometimes, if he turns his thoughts sideways and reaches out, he can touch the thoughts of a secret companion, another Jaime, from another time.

Jaime Lannister has a secret. 

Sometimes, if he turns his thoughts _sideways_ and reaches out, he can touch the thoughts of a secret companion, another Jaime, from another time. 

Jay is an innocent. He has no training in arms or self-defence. There are no knights in his time; the king’s justice is enforced by officers of the law, and smallfolk and highborn alike can – mostly – go about most of their lives in peace without ever encountering violence. 

On those few occasions when Jay does encounter violence, he calls on Jaime. 

Jaime doesn’t mind. Jay is clever, like Tyrion, but without bitterness; he doesn’t share Jaime’s _dys-lexia_ , as he calls Jaime’s difficulty with reading. Jay helped Jaime work through some difficult concepts, including the most difficult choice of Jaime’s life –

** 

The first time it happens, Jaime is in his fifteenth year. 

Aerys had been – experimenting – with wildfire in the throne room; the thick, acrid smoke had made Jaime’s head swim unpleasantly, and the sound of the poor unfortunate’s screams had driven him to try and focus on something, anything else, so long as it wasn’t hoarse screaming, Aerys’ laughter and the smell of roasting flesh. 

Suddenly, he feels his thoughts turn sideways, feels a brush of something – some _one_ – against his mind, and he suddenly opens his eyes to another place, in another world. 

He’s in – a room, with a number of other boys, all dressed in identical clothing, seated at a wooden desk. A man is standing in front of them, like a maester, discussing – 

_A play,_ a voice whispers in his ear. _About a Valyrian general who overthrew centuries of order to declare himself king. His nobles banded together against his tyranny, and his closest companion strikes the first blow._

“Mr Lannister,” the maester says, ironically. “Might I have your attention, just for one moment?” 

Jaime only blinks. 

“Do you think Brutus was right to kill Caesar?” the maester asks. 

“Think, boy!” he snaps, when Jaime has nothing to say. “Brutus was Caesar’s right hand. And yet Caesar was a tyrant. Can it still be honourable to keep your vow to a tyrant, to stand by while he leads the city to ruin? At what point does what is honourable and what is right come into conflict?” 

**

_Think, boy!_ the maester had said. 

Over the next two years, Jaime has plenty of opportunity to think. 

As Aerys grows more and more adventurous in his use of wildfire, Jaime finds himself retreating far away inside more often, sometimes thinking of Cersei, sometimes reaching for that brush against his consciousness, the other Jaime – _Jay_ – the one who was still a boy and not a glorified hostage to a mad king. 

The thick black smoke of the wildfire makes it easier and easier every time, his head swimming and his body feeling distant and numb as his thoughts drift farther and farther away. 

He finds himself sharing Jay’s mind, sharing his lessons with various maesters in this _school_. Jaime is not much use, but Jay is quite clever; he explains the concepts simply enough, and Jaime remembers enough to consider in the privacy of his cell in White Sword Tower. 

And yet, eventually, he always finds himself back in the throne room, the taste of smoke and burning flesh on his tongue, the lone Kingsguard to a mad king. 

_Think, boy!_ he remembers the maester saying. 

** 

When Aerys starts caching wildfire underneath the city, Jaime takes a skin of wine up to the battlements and deliberately reaches out to Jay. 

Wherever, whenever Jay is, the stars that look down at him are still recognizably the same; the Ice Dragon’s eye still pointing ever-northwards. Jaime finds that a comforting thought. 

_The King is mad,_ he thinks, putting the truth into words for the first time. _He would prefer to see the city burn, rather than surrender._ He thinks on some of Jay’s dry lessons in philosophy. _What ought I to do?_

_The King is a tyrant,_ Jay replies. _Remember the play? Do you think Brutus was right to kill him?_

_I swore a sacred oath,_ Jaime thinks miserably. _I stood up in front of the whole kingdom and swore to protect him. I am a knight of the Kingsguard._

_If you don’t kill him, he’ll burn the whole city to the ground,_ Jay says. _What will your honour be worth then?_ He pauses, and then goes on. _What use is honour anyway? No one believes in honour or chivalry or glory anymore._

Jaime snaps the connection shut, furiously offended. 

_Jaime?_ He hears Jay knocking against his consciousness, trying to apologise. _Look, I’m sorry – Jaime, please. I didn’t mean that –_

But Jaime firmly shuts him out. 

** 

Later, when he’s seated on the Iron Throne with Aerys’ blood on his hands, he opens the connection again. 

_I killed him, Jay,_ he thinks. _Now what do I do?_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Jay's prison woes continue. Jaime meets his own Brienne for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an experimental story for me. I found myself coming back to it and decided there was still a bit left to tell. I think there may be one more chapter in this? 
> 
> Please note I'm also going to make a few changes to chapter 1, just to the scene with Brienne, to make things a little easier to read.

1.

**

“Tell me about the fight in the cells,” the court appointed psychologist says. 

**

Because he was a Lannister, because of the nature of the charges laid against him, Jay had been denied bail. 

They’d taken his blood-spattered clothes as evidence, giving him a drab institutional jump suit instead; he’d huddled in on himself, shivering and afraid, trying not to draw the attention of the other prisoners. 

Inevitably they’d circled him, taunting and catcalling. 

_Jaime,_ Jay had thought desperately, _Jaime, please. Help me._

He’d felt his other self’s slow, lazy awakening, felt a sense of warmth and satiation – Jaime had been in bed with Cersei, then, and for a dizzy moment Jay could smell Cersei’s heady perfume, taste her on his tongue. A disorienting sense of double-vision assailed him; Cersei’s silk-lined bower superimposed over the cruel reality of his own world. 

Jaime had taken barely a moment to assess the situation. _That one,_ he’d whispered. _Face him down, and the others won’t attack._

But Jay hadn’t managed to intimidate the leader, and Jaime had been forced to step in. When the guards came running to break up the disturbance, they’d found Jay unharmed and the other prisoners – 

Well. Jaime had stopped short of killing them this time.

**

“How did you do what you did, Mr Lannister?” the psychologist asks. “You’re an academic. Your file shows no record of any special training.” 

Jay looks away. He’s never had to have any kind of training. He’s always had Jaime.

** 

In the prison visiting room, Brienne’s eyes are a bright, beautiful blue. 

_Like the Maiden’s,_ Jaime had said when they first met her. _Pity about the rest of her._

“Tell me about him,” Brienne says, her voice lowered, twining their fingers together. “Please.” 

Jay looks down. In all his nearly forty years, he has never told anyone about his secret. No one has ever suspected. 

Until Jaime killed four men to protect him and Brienne. 

“His name is Jaime Lannister,” Jay begins slowly. “Just like me. His father is the lord of Casterly Rock, just like me.” He pauses, laughs. “I think I might even have been named after him. But he’s – he lives in Westeros, hundreds of years in the past. Where he is, it’s just after the War of Five Kings.” 

She looks at him strangely. “Jaime Lannister,” she says. “The Kingslayer, Jaime Lannister. The one who killed the Mad King. And – didn’t he have his hand chopped off?”

“Yes,” Jay says, nodding. “That’s him. He and I, we can – we can talk to each other. We can see through each other’s eyes. We can – if I allow it, he can take control of my body, for a time. And vice versa.”

Brienne looks troubled. “And that’s how…?”

“At first it was fun,” Jay says, stumbling over the explanation. “Jaime wanted to escape the Mad King’s throne room, and I – well, I wanted to escape having to play football.”

Brienne snorts. “You would.” She smiles, briefly. And then – “But it moved beyond football, didn’t it.”

Jay presses his lips together and looks away, ashamed. He nods. “I know I’m not particularly – masculine, Brienne. I’ve never been any good with violence or confrontation. Jaime is – better at that sort of thing. He steps in and handles things when I can’t.”

“Jaime,” Brienne says, clasping his hands. “Jaime, you’ve got to stop judging yourself by his standards. Of course you’re not as good with violence as he is. You don’t need to be. You have other strengths. Don’t keep dwelling on what the other Jaime does for you. The question is: what do you do for him?” 

Jay looks at her, at her wide, clear blue eyes. “I help him to think things through,” he says.

**

2.

**

The first time Jaime sees the Maid of Tarth, he can’t quite believe his eyes. He’s drunk, yes, but surely not drunk enough to believe that Jay’s ugly woman has suddenly appeared in Westeros – besides, this woman is taller, even more muscular, and even uglier. 

The eyes are the same, though. Blue and straight-forward and innocent as the Maiden’s. 

_Jay,_ he thinks, though he does not wish to betray his secret to Catelyn Stark’s sharp blue eyes. _Jay, are the gods playing with us?_

** 

When the Bloody Mummers drag her off into the bushes, screaming and kicking, it’s Jay’s Brienne that he thinks of – her strength and gentle kindness – as he spins his outrageous lie about Tarth’s sapphire reserves. 

When they cut off his sword-hand, he gets to experience that strength and kindness for himself. 

** 

After they cripple him he goes away again, either lost in fever or drifting unanchored between this reality and Jay’s. Jay never turns him away, lets him stay as a silent observer to his much gentler life as a sort of maester: teaching his wide-eyed students; bloodless sniping and politicking with his colleagues; going home every night to Brienne. 

Every now and then, Jaime’s own life makes an unwelcome intrusion. His own Brienne, pale and frowning, shaking him awake and telling him to come back, not to drift so far away. The dull, aching pain and the sickly heat of his fever. The smell of his hand rotting about his neck. 

“Where do you go?” Brienne asks him one night, trying to feed him some sort of gruel. “Your eyes are open, but – you’re not looking out from behind them.”

He stares up at her. Her eyes are so blue, so clear and guileless and gentle. “Elsewhere,” he says hoarsely. “Elsewhen.”

He laughs, suddenly, at her worried frown. “Don’t frown so, wench. Somewhere, somewhen, there’s a kinder, better world.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay loses himself in prison. Jaime has to live his life. 
> 
> Things end happily (not in grand tragedy).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how much time passes between season 4 and season 8. But for the purposes of this story, I'm going to say 2.5 years. Because. 
> 
> Also, I don't believe in Jaime's self-esteem issues as per seasons 7 and 8, or the sudden unprecedented attack of self-loathing presented to us in episode 8x04.

**

**BRIENNE (1)**

**

When Brienne had returned from her second tour of Essos, she’d felt adrift. Lost in the uncaring rush of civilian life, unable to connect with her old friends or her old life. Her brother Galladon, an avid mediaeval scholar, had taken her to a festival held at the Red Keep – now a cultural museum – and had shown her the collection of mediaeval armour and weaponry housed in what had once been the White Sword Tower, the ancient home of the Kingsguard.

Galladon had taken her up to the very top of the tower, to the room with the white weirwood table and seven seats where the Kingsguard had once met, and had stuck his head out of the window and twisted to look upwards. 

“What are you doing?” she’d hissed. 

Galladon had grinned at her. “Come on, Bri,” he’d said. “From here, you can climb up onto the roof and look down on everything. The view is fabulous.” 

“How can you possibly know – Galladon!” 

But her brother had squeezed out of the window and boosted himself up onto the roof, and she’d had no choice but to follow him. She was tall and strong and agile; soon enough she was up on the ancient shingled roof, scowling at her brother – and staring speechless at another man, who must have been sitting up on the roof before their arrival. 

“Brienne,” Galladon had said, with such studied casualness that she’d frowned at him suspiciously. “This is Professor Jaime Lannister, who was one of my post-grad advisors. He showed me this spot.” 

Professor Lannister had blinked at Galladon before fixing his attention on Brienne. There had been a strange, breathless pause as he stared at her, his eyes wide and curious. For her part, Brienne stared at him in dismay: not even the black-rimmed glasses and tweed coat could disguise his golden good looks. 

“How on earth did you know about this place?” she’d asked him. 

It took him a few moments to answer. “An old friend showed me, once,” he’d said. “We used to come up here –” he’d smiled, a crooked, ironic, secretly amused smile, “and get drunk and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings.” 

** 

At the time, Brienne had dismissed his strange comment as the usual academic irony. Now, though, she rather thinks it was nothing but the truth – that Jaime and his _companion_ had once sat up on the roof of White Sword Tower, long centuries apart, and had discussed Shakespeare and philosophy and regicide. 

** 

In the end, Lannister money prevails and Jaime is sentenced to only two and a half years in a medium security prison. 

The day before his sentence begins, Brienne is allowed one last conversation with her husband. They’re separated by a thick plastic partition. When she can no longer bear his attempts to comfort her, Brienne puts her hand up on the plastic, the phone pressed to her ear. “Jaime,” she says, “let me speak to him.” 

He frowns at her. “To – him?” Jaime asks. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She nods, fighting back tears. “Please. I need to speak to Ser Jaime.” 

Jaime stares at her for a long moment, and then between one moment and the next his eyes – shift, and suddenly there’s another man looking out at her. 

He tilts his head and smiles at her, a crooked, ironic smile with more than a hint of teeth. _This one has claws,_ she thinks, numb – 

“Lady Brienne,” the stranger says. “To what do I owe –”

“I need you to do something for me,” she says abruptly, cutting him off. 

He blinks, and then settles back in his chair. “Go on,” he says. “What is it?”

“I need you,” she says, leaning forward and staring him right in the eye, “to look after Jaime for me while he’s – away.”

It’s strange, she thinks, the way Ser Jaime’s thoughts flit across her own Jaime’s face. 

He laughs – a fey, strange, flash of irony. “Oh, Lady Brienne, don’t frown so. I’ll take your husband elsewhere, elsewhen, I promise you. I’ll keep him alive, if not for his sake, then for yours.”

She’s struck, suddenly, by his reckless golden beauty. He’s a ruthless, cold-blooded killer, and for a moment she stares, spellbound. 

“Thank you,” she says, her voice strangled. 

He smiles at her, strangely gentle – and then between one moment and the next, her own Jaime returns.

**

When it’s finally time to leave and she’s forced to walk away, leaving Jaime to his fate, her only comfort is the knowledge that Jaime has his companion to keep him safe. 

** 

**JAY**

**

Prison is grey and colourless, an endless succession of days filled with impersonal humiliation, tedium and careless brutality. Lannister money wins him preferential treatment, but there are always guards with a taste for cruelty or prisoners who think him weak and easy prey – after the first confrontation he spends much of his time in solitary confinement, and in the silence and privacy of his cell he drifts gently away, unmoored, into the past.

Jaime’s life is a world of brutal contrasts, where lives burn swift and bright and fierce. The call of brazen trumpets, the urgent stakes of war and intrigue, the thrill of life and excitement in Jaime’s veins – all of it becomes more real to Jay than the grey prison walls and endless drudgery of day after day behind bars. 

He starts spending more and more time curled up behind Jaime’s eyes. 

He sees the turmoil and unrest of King Joffrey’s notorious reign, and the boy-king’s choking, gasping death at his own wedding. 

(He is briefly banished to his cold, blank cell as Jaime and Cersei fuck in the great sept of Baelor. Jaime has always kept that part of his life private.) 

He sees the Maid of Tarth through Jaime’s eyes, bigger and less comfortable in her own skin than his own Brienne. He sees the way she stares at Jaime, curious and wondering, and marvels that Jaime can be so blind.

He sees the extraordinary trial of Tyrion Lannister and the inglorious end of Tywin Lannister, who bears an uncanny and disturbing resemblance to Jay’s own father. 

He bears witness to the court of Tommen Baratheon, and goes with Jaime to the Riverlands. 

Engrossed so thoroughly in Jaime’s life in the past, he loses track of his own reality. Days and nights and weeks blend together, and he spends his time staring unseeing at the walls of his cell, elsewhere, elsewhen.

** 

One visiting day he walks out, unseeing, and sits across from Brienne in the visitor’s booth, and he does not recognize her. 

“Jaime,” she says, “where have you gone?”

“Pennytree,” he says, unthinking. 

“Jaime,” she says again, “we’ve never been to Pennytree. How long have you been spending with Ser Jaime? Do you even know what day it is?” She puts her hand on the plastic barrier between them, beseeching.

“Listen to me,” she says. 

He blinks at her. Her eyes are so blue, so clear and guileless and gentle. 

“Promise me you won’t lose yourself,” she says, her eyes welling with tears. “Promise you’ll come back to me.”

“I promise,” he says. 

But even as he wishes her goodbye, he finds himself slipping back once more. 

** 

Time passes, day after day after day, and Jay slowly finds himself drifting away. 

**

**JAIME**

**

Jaime grows accustomed to Jay’s constant presence at the back of his mind. 

As the days grow shorter and colder, as autumn falls on the Riverlands and he returns to King’s Landing to find Tommen dead and his sister Queen by her own hand, he finds that there is no longer an escape into Jay’s world, and he has to live his own life. 

Cersei grows cruel and strange. Power twists and corrupts her – _or perhaps she’s always been this way, but you’ve never seen it,_ Jay thinks, and Jaime thinks on Brienne’s guileless blue eyes. 

Daenerys Targaryen lands at Dragonstone with forty thousand Dothraki, ten thousand Unsullied and three full-grown dragons. 

_Dragons!_ Jay marvels, sounding like Tyrion when he was a little boy. 

But when the full force of her great black beast is unleashed, Jaime and Jay both watch on in horror. In moments, the battlefield is wreathed in smoke and fire, men screaming as they burn to death, as Dothraki barbarians cut them down, laughing and shrieking, and the dragon’s flight sounds like tearing calico – 

_Like a thousand jet planes,_ Jay thinks, awed. _Hear that supersonic boom!_

The smell of roasting flesh and the sound of thin, anguished shrieking throws a switch in Jaime’s brain and suddenly he’s in Jay’s blank grey cell, staring at the blank stone walls. 

_Are you mad?_ Jay demands. _You can’t leave your men there to die! Take us back!_

Jaime goes back, gathers all his courage, and does what little he can, though he longs to flee. He rallies his men again and again, only to see them burned or cut down. He sends Bronn off on a desperate errand, has a brief moment of hope as the dragon falls, only to level out again and destroy the scorpion – 

And finally he sees his chance. 

The tiny silver Queen, vulnerable on the ground; a clear field and a fast horse beneath him; a lance to hand – 

_Jaime, what are you thinking?_ Jay asks. _Jaime? Jaime, you’re not seriously…?_

Jaime’s not thinking when he charges headlong at the dragon. He’s lost in the wind in his hair, the pounding of hooves, and his mind is filled with light. 

** 

**[JAY]**

[“What the fuck were you thinking?” the mercenary Bronn asks, shaking him. “Did you see that bloody great dragon between you and her?”

Jay blinks. Jaime has gone silent. 

“Well?” Bronn demands again. “Did you?” 

“Yes,” Jay hisses, pulling away with a jerk. “Of course I saw it.”

“Listen to me, cunt,” Bronn says, and despite himself Jay feels a flicker of amusement. 

He laughs, and Bronn looks at him strangely. “What the fuck is wrong with you now?” he asks. “Where did your wits go?”

Slowly, reluctantly, Jaime stirs and awakens. 

Jay retreats.] 

** 

**JAIME**

**

He cuts ties with his sister and goes north.

Brienne of Tarth vouches for him openly, courageous and honest as ever. 

When she kneels before him and makes her knightly vows, as trusting and hopeful as he had once been, kneeling before his hero Ser Arthur Dayne, he loses himself in her blue eyes. 

**

The long night falls, and he knows nothing but horror and revulsion. Side by side and back to back he fights, and Brienne is his only anchor; even Jay is silent, overwhelmed by the horror of it. 

He blanks his mind of everything but survival, and the knowledge of Brienne’s presence beside him. In a way, it’s another kind of escape. 

** 

Against all odds, they survive. 

** 

At the feast, Jay only says _If you can’t win her on your own, Jaime, there’s no helping you_ and retreats back to his own life. 

Jaime takes a long swallow of his wine and follows Brienne to her chamber. 

When she lets him in, he throws himself on her mercy – and when he tangles his hand in her hair and kisses her, hard and fierce, she opens her mouth beneath his and kisses him back. 

It’s glorious. 

** 

For the next few weeks he’s lost in a dream of her. He shares her bed openly, wakes tangled with her beneath thick furs, and lets all his troubles fall by the wayside. He forgets about Cersei, about the babe, about the Dragon Queen and the Golden Company and the people of King’s Landing, whom he’d once broken a sacred oath to protect. 

He forgets about everything except her courage, her honesty and her blue, blue eyes. He loses himself in her body, in her mouth, her small breasts and her long legs and the warmth of her when they’re joined and moving together, evenly matched here as they were in everything else. 

He spends long moments staring into her eyes, sharing volumes in a single glance – and when they kiss, it’s a soft, tender, wondering thing. 

** 

And then reality intrudes on them, in the form of a raven from the south. 

Late that night, he sits before the fire, thinking. 

_Jay,_ he thinks deliberately, reaching out to his companion. 

He catches a glimpse of grey stone walls before he feels Jay’s familiar presence. 

_Cersei is mad,_ he thinks, putting the truth into words for the first time. _She would prefer to see the city burn, rather than surrender. What should I do?_

_What can you do?_ Jay asks. _You’re one man, far in the north. Even if you make it in time, you’ll be caught between a Mad Queen and a Dragon Queen._

_Cersei is with child,_ Jaime says. _She’s my sister. Perhaps she’ll listen to me. Perhaps I can save the child, at least._

There’s a long, silent pause. 

_You’ve finally found some happiness,_ Jay says. _Don’t throw it all away and die for nothing. There’s still so much to live for._

Jaime frowns. _What do you mean?_

_I’ve always tried to avoid telling you about the future,_ Jay says. _Just in case my telling you changes things. But Jaime – if you go back to King’s Landing you’ll die. No matter what you do, the Dragon Queen will prevail and will burn the city; there’s nothing you or anyone can do to stop it._

Jaime’s breath catches in his throat. _I have to try!_ he says. _I can’t stay here in safety and let the world burn. I can’t live with myself if I don’t try._

_Jaime,_ Jay says. His voice is – desolate. _Jaime, please. If you die –_

** 

**[JAY]**

[Jay seizes control of Jaime’s body. 

“Jaime,” a low voice says. He turns to see the Maid of Tarth sitting up in the bed, staring at him. “Why are you still awake? Is something wrong?” 

She frowns, sensing the atmosphere. Abruptly, she throws off the covers and comes to kneel before him, her eyes peering into his. 

“You’re Jaime’s – companion,” she says. 

“He was thinking of going back,” Jay says hoarsely. 

“I know,” she says. “I saw it.” 

“I stopped him for you.” He paused. “And for me.”

She smiles sadly. “You can’t take away his choices like that.”

“Where I come from,” Jay says, “honour and chivalry aren’t nearly as important as love and happiness.” 

“It sounds like a beautiful place,” she says. “But please – let him go.”

Jay retreats.]

** 

**JAIME**

** 

“If you must go back,” Brienne says, “then we’ll go back together.” 

** 

**BRIENNE (1)**

** 

Two and a half long years later, Jaime is released from prison. His eyes are still a little queer, and he still drifts off into silence sometimes, his eyes glazing over as he goes somewhere, somewhen else. 

But when they leave King’s Landing for the warmth and slow simplicity of Tarth, she can see him growing more and more anchored to this reality, this present. 

By the time he’s been released from prison for a full year, he looks at her, entirely himself, and smiles as brilliantly and openly as he had when they first met. 

“Welcome back, Jaime,” she says, holding him close and swearing never to let him slip away again. 

** 

**BRIENNE (2)**

** 

The waters of Tarth are blue and tranquil. 

Jaime holds his daughter’s hand as she splashes in the shallows, her golden curls bright in the sunlight and her green eyes filled with innocent joy. 

Cersei is dead. Daenerys is dead. The world has changed. 

But Jaime lives, and together they managed to save the child even if they couldn’t save the city. 

Long months have passed since those nightmare days after his sister’s death and the burning of King’s Landing, when Jaime had slipped away again and again, his eyes glazing over as he went somewhere, somewhen else. 

_We are two parts of a whole,_ Jaime had said, once. 

Had he been talking about his sister, or his companion?

But when Jaime swings the toddling babe up into his arms and walks up the sand to meet her, his eyes are clear and unshadowed and filled with love. 

“Welcome back, Jaime,” she says, holding him close and swearing never to let him slip away again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who have left kudos and/or comments on this fic. I appreciate each and every one of them.


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